Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 5.djvu/170

 I 56 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

exact obedience. Domesticated animals he truly controls by coercion. His own children show the transition from control by knowledge and skill while they are babes, to control by force at times, then to coercion, and lastly to the highest form of con- trol, that by persuasion and education.

If we examine the most elementary form of coercion as found in the earliest wife-capture, or slavery, we find it to con- sist of a command, express or tacit (in the language of Austin) , accompanied by a power and a determination, recognized by the subject person, to inflict evil in case of disobedience or to award good in case of obedience. This command is definitely limited. It is not a command to know or to know how. It is not a com- mand to believe, or think, or imagine, or invent, or feel, or will ; nor to be well or sick, strong or weak, big or little. It may be such in form, if issued by a fool or a bigot, but in the nature of the case it cannot reach directly the psychic or physical con- stitution and functions of the subject. It is only a command to act or to forbear certain acts. The proprietor who gives the command has in the first place appropriated the slave as the readiest means of promoting his own interests. What these interests are is with him a matter of opinion, of desire, even of erratic and useless desire. His commands, whether they inure to his own benefit or not, are the expression of his wishes. In other words, what he commands is simply services. He may conceivabl}- give orders merely to show his power, or he may give orders in drunkenness, hallucination, or eccentricity ; but the predominant quality of all commands, taken in the large, is the desire for the services of those under control in promoting the wishes and opinions of the proprietor. This is the grand aim of private appropriation, and it may, indeed, seem at first a truism to assert it in this way, but its significance lies in the fact that the only external field where mere opinion or wish can get itself incorporated in tangible results is that of controlling the services of others. In consumption it is human products and human efforts that are used up. The individual finds free expression for his own character only as he consumes the services of others. Nature's products are irregular, inadequate, and, for both the